Chapter 2
CHAPTER TWO
V era’s route from the school to work took her through the business and industrial districts of New Orleans, and to the heart of the city. Mardi Gras World passed on her right, followed by Harrah’s Casino. A freighter was heading down the Mississippi, and had just passed the Aquarium. Tourists strolling the parallel sidewalk headed for the Jackson Square overlook.
When she ended up behind a horse-drawn carriage, traffic was too congested to allow her to pass, but she enjoyed the people-watching around the French Market.
She pushed the preset for Mavis’s number on her dash mounted cell phone.
“Hey, girl,” the principal greeted her. “I have about three minutes.”
“Two more than I expected. So in sixty seconds, tell me about Rev. Don’t ask me why I’m asking, because I really don’t know how to answer that. Yet.”
Mavis’s chuckle held no note of surprise. “He’s something else, isn’t he? He has that effect on women.”
“So he’s a player.” But even as she said it, Vera knew he wasn’t. Mavis confirmed it.
“I’ve never even heard him talk about dating. Beau says Rev spends his time at our school or the church his aunt founded. God’s Light and Voice, just outside of the town limits. She raised him, but passed away about a year ago.”
A different emotion touched her voice. “It was a tough loss for him. He’s smiled a lot less since, but bless the kids. When they found out, they were so good to him. Brought him cards. He keeps the whole stack of them in his locker, a couple of the homemade ones taped to the outside.”
Vera remembered his gaze lingering on her pentacle and Isis pendant, but she hadn’t seen any disapproval. Only curiosity, about every detail he saw. Just recalling it speared heat through her.
“What does he do at the church?”
“Beau says he’s got a hell of a singing voice, and does a little preaching, when the spirit moves him.”
An edge entered Mavis’s tone. “Rev moved out of the aunt’s house when her sister and her son Witford, Rev’s cousin, sold it. They run the church now. Rev lives in a rented room near the school. I don’t always know that they have Rev’s best interests at heart.”
“Do they have too much control over him?”
“It’s a peculiar relationship, but no,” Mavis admitted. “I had my concerns when I interviewed him, but Rev’s autonomy was out front and strong. When he told me he wanted the job, his interest was whole-hearted. Witford visited me face-to-face before that, to get Rev the interview. He wanted to warn me that Rev’s reading and writing skills weren’t great, but that shouldn’t count against him.”
“Learning disability?”
“According to Witford, no. I’ve tried to get deeper into it, but Rev just thanks me for my concern and tells me if he’s not worried about it, I shouldn’t be, either. He doesn’t volunteer much on his thoughts about himself. When you talk to Rev, he always manages to get the conversation back to you, or someone he’s concerned about. In a school our size, there’s always someone.
“Witford told me Rev was a hard worker, and I’d never regret hiring him. Both things are an understatement, but it doesn’t really cover it. Some things… It’s better to get to know him. It’s too difficult to describe, what it is about Rev.”
Vera frowned. “There’s more you’re not telling me. You’re holding back.”
“I’m telling you more than I’d tell anyone else. I want to respect the man’s privacy.” Her tone became lighter. “He handles himself well enough around women, always very courteous, but if they get forward, he backs off fast, like they’re a salesperson who showed up at his door with an offer that doesn’t interest him. He politely declines, steps back in and shuts the door. He has an remarkable level of self-possession.”
Vera heard a voice in the background, probably Mavis’s secretary. “Yes, I’ll handle it,” Mavis said. “I better go, Vera. I’ll expect an answer to that question during our lunch. About why you’re interested.”
“I might have one by then,” Vera said. “Talk to you later.”
The carriage turned off, and the Aston Martin purred onward, into the Garden District, where Thomas Rose Associates had their offices.
After she parked in the back lot of the former antebellum home, she took the side stairwell entrance. It allowed her to walk the path through the landscaping, under the wide arms of live oaks that had stood for several centuries. The everblooming azaleas were thick with deep red and clean white blooms. Statues and fountains were bordered by beds of flowers that thrived in the humid Southern environment, and benches scattered throughout the area allowed employees the option of taking their lunch or working on their laptops outside.
The discovery of an intriguing man had given Vera a sense of anticipation. The beauty and comfort of familiar surroundings fed it.
She paused at the statue of a dancing girl, placed on a pedestal in one of the fountains. The water splashed off her flowing skirt, long hair and arched back, elegant hands lifted to the sky. It was a newer piece, one Vera had found and added to the garden. She’d discovered it soon after Cyn and Mick had gotten together.
It was a reminder of what she’d told herself earlier today. Though the years were passing, her soul was still dancing. The important things in life would happen as were meant to happen.
Even if they were never meant to happen at all.
Damn it all, wisdom had taught her the cruel irony of human nature; the more a person had, the more room there was for such baseless melancholy, if one allowed it to creep inside and become a squatter there.
She would never be alone and unloved. Never. The women who managed TRA—Ros, Abby, Skye, Cyn and herself—cared for one another, and the men they’d bonded with felt the same way. If Ros wasn’t available, Lawrence would be just as quick to come to Vera’s aid, for whatever she needed. Same with Neil, Tiger and Mick, very capable males with a remarkable range of skills to offer, emotionally as well as physically. They were dedicated to serving their Mistresses. Even Neil, who was a Dom himself, but took care of Abby’s Domme-side needs in the way unique to them.
Vera knew she also shouldn’t let her wishes assign too much significance to a potentially short-term attraction. She was almost certain Rev was brand new to actively pursuing a submissive orientation. There was an innocence to that side of him, mixed with a curious maturity and level-headedness that Mavis had confirmed with the clues to his background. Self-possession. That was a good term for it.
Sometimes solving the puzzle was the peak for a Dominant and submissive relationship. Once it was fully explored, the interest waned, and they moved on. Him to the next step in his journey, as she moved on to her own.
She carried those thoughts up the stairs and into her office. After tucking her purse into the bottom drawer of her desk, she turned on her computer, and considered the day’s to-do list.
She had a lunch interview with a candidate for Cyn’s department, a marketing executive from Florida who was interested in joining the busy firm. His credentials looked good, and they’d already had several phone interviews. The face-to-face impression was the final step. After lunch, she needed to turn her attention to some client contracts.
But instead of getting right to her email and phone messages, she moved to the windows and looked at the grounds from this side. A couple of employees were working on their laptops in the shade of the oaks. Bastion, their indomitable office manager, was pacing along the iron fence, handling a phone call on his earpiece.
Courtesy was the reason he was as far from anyone else in the garden as he could get. He was smoking a cigarette. They all wanted him to quit, and he would do so, for short periods, but if something stressed him out, he’d pick up a pack again.
“Keeps me away from the beignets, Vera,” he’d told her, smacking his drum-tight ass. “Gotta keep this looking good for my pets.”
“Oh yeah,” Cyn had said, coming into the executive coffee room to get her fifth cup of the morning. She’d pulled an all- nighter for an account presentation. “Lung cancer is soooo sexy. That hacking cough gets me going.”
“That’s just an excuse,” Bastion told her. “You know I’m too much man for you.”
Cyn had scoffed. “No such thing.”
Vera studied Bastion as he pivoted and wrapped one large hand around the pineapple finial on the gate. He cocked a hip when he hooked one ankle over the other.
The man had discipline and drive, a Dom who preferred two subs at once, one male and one female. And he was a muscular god, so he had the discipline to routinely win the war with his emotionally-driven sweet tooth. He didn’t like to talk much about the things that stressed him out, and whatever it was usually passed in a day or two, but she’d keep an eye on him.
She thought about Cyn’s comment again. No such thing. But that had been before she’d met Mick, the man who was too much for her…in the exact right ways.
Vera knew so much about how love worked. She’d been there to see it grow, crest and die, and suck the joy out of her soul. She knew how hard the road back from that loss was.
She hadn’t let it make her bitter, or unwilling to take that road again. Mostly. But this morning she’d been reminded that when a woman met a man who unbalanced her, it could take over everything. All good sense was swept away in a tide of feeling, beyond her reach.
“You’re not working.”
Abby was standing in Vera’s doorway. Her catlike hazel eyes were clear and sharp, and she was making eye contact. That, and her presence in the office, said it was a good day for their CFO, who suffered from paranoid schizophrenia.
Neil was also home right now, which helped. The active SEAL could be called away for missions that spanned a few days or a few weeks, but when they’d gotten together, Abby had insisted he keep his job. Between an amazing psychiatrist who helped her manage her medications, and the support network in this building, her foundation was strong. She was determined that Neil would be able to serve out his twenty-year stint.
Neil had agreed, with one caveat; that he’d make his own decision about when and if she needed him to be here full time. She was the most important thing in his life, and nothing would undermine that, even his life’s calling.
Abby’s long red hair and body of a Hollywood starlet upset the stereotype of the bespectacled and bookish-looking accountant. Her aptitude for finances was exceptional, but since her diagnosis, she had her work double-checked by her team, just in case. She accepted her limitations without often letting them dismay her. When they did, the women and Neil helped her over the rough patches.
“Yes, I’m such a slacker,” Vera told her. “I took five minutes to look out the window before I dive into the contracts Cyn’s far-too-successful account teams have created. Darn overachievers.”
“Well, working for Cyn, they’re not likely to under achieve. They live in fear and awe of her.”
“As do we all. Her and Ros.”
Abby chuckled. “You look like you have something on your mind that isn’t about this. Something good?”
“Maybe. I ran into someone intriguing at the school.”
“Intriguing enough to pull two of my essential staff away from their work?”
Ros had arrived behind Abby, her jewel blue eyes sparkling as she teased them. Her gaze also touched Vera’s purple and black heels. “Told you those would look great on you. Skye said, ‘They add a subtle punctuation to Vera’s already fascinating personality.’”
People who went shoe-shopping with Ros never looked at a pair the same way again.
“What voice did she use?” Vera asked.
“Mine,” Ros said. “Little wiseass.”
Their I/T and communications director could sign fluently, but for a speaking world, she employed the latest in digital voice technology. While she liked using celebrity voices, her coworkers and friends’ voices weren’t off limits.
“I keep telling you we shouldn’t use voice recognition as a security measure here,” Vera said. “If we ever tick her off, she’ll empty our accounts and head for the islands.”
“She won’t go without Tiger, and he’s not leaving his garage unless he’s being carried away by a funeral home. I think he plans to have his precious motorcycle collection cremated with him, like a Viking funeral pyre.”
“Plus Skye gets paid more than all the rest of us,” Abby added. “She has more reason to stay.”
“Except for Bastion,” Ros corrected. “His skillset is the most indispensable.”
They were joking, but all of the staff were paid generously. Ros and Abby believed in rewarding success, and their employees were paid commensurate with their efforts.
As Abby moved further inside Vera’s office, Ros stepped up to her desk to lay a folder on it. “We got the contract with the Bullington Group.”
“I had no doubts,” Abby said dryly. “Especially after he told you he’d never trust his sizeable marketing budget to a female-led firm.”
“I’ll probably regret it, since we’ll have to handhold him through the ups and downs for the long-term gain.” Ros nodded at Vera. “If the senior marketing candidate you’re meeting today gets hired, tell Cyn I recommend she give him and his team that account. Bullington will be able to self-manage those ups and downs if the point man is a man. I don’t mind taking the short cut.”
“Because you’ve single-handedly scored the account, vagina and all.”
“There’s that.” Ros showed her white teeth in a cutthroat smile and brushed back the dark streak in her white-blonde hair. “Plus, we’ll take such good care of him, he’ll revise his whole life view and moral structure.”
“She loves to fantasize,” Vera noted to Abby.
“What happened to the moratorium on acquiring major accounts?” Abby arched a brow.
“He made that asinine comment at the Kensington and Associates cocktail party, and Matt Kensington bet me a five-thousand-dollar donation for Laurel Grove that I couldn’t change his mind.”
“He knew you would,” Vera said, with satisfaction.
“Yes, he did.” Ros’s smile flashed again. “Speaking of which, is Janis all squared away?”
“Yes. I saw him. He’s in rough shape, but he’s strong. Serena and the counselors will be able to help him, whatever the outcome for his mother.”
“Good.”
Vera returned to her desk, sitting down and placing her fingers in a fan shape on either side of her laptop. As she considered them, she remembered gripping Rev’s arms, the rough coveralls and firm shape of the man beneath.
With a sigh, she pushed back from the desk and crossed her legs. “Have you ever met the custodial staff at Mavis’s school?”
Ros and Abby exchanged a look. Abby sat down in her guest chair while Ros leaned a shapely hip against the desk. Ros was all sharp, sophisticated edges, her Upper East Side New York background never completely absent. She had a sleek shoulder length bob. Her stylish skirt and blouse ensemble were paired with today’s unforgettable shoes. Bold red, blue and green colors were checkered on the uppers of the stilettos. Her makeup enhanced the thickness of her lashes, the precise brows and curve of her jaw.
“I haven’t met any of the custodians,” she said. “What’s his name? Whoever he is, he’s unsettled you, and very little does.”
“He goes by Rev. He’s younger than me. Not much younger, and he’s handsome, which is beside the point.”
“But worth mentioning,” Abby put in.
“Yes.” Vera traced the colorful mandala sticker on the top of her laptop. “He has a submissive orientation, I suspect unexplored.”
Ros raised a brow. “You told me you weren’t interested in breaking in any more BDSM virgins.”
“Yes.”
The path submissives followed at the beginning, those initial steps, had a sameness to them. Though it was still a pleasure to watch other Dommes handle it, she’d taken that journey enough. Vera preferred to get them later, when they better understood what they wanted. Exploration at that level could go deeper, and wider.
“I believe his spiritual and emotional development is already there. The rest…that’s just mechanics. You know what Mick, Neil and Lawrence say about being a cop or SEAL? How despite all the training involved, there has to be an aptitude for the job already built into their makeup? That’s what I mean. I know I’m not making a lot of sense.”
“But you know what you feel,” Abby said.
“Yes. But I also feel nervous,” she admitted. “Like there’s a lot there, and what I find…it might alter important things I believe about myself. And what I want from a man.”
“Is that bad?”
“I’ve been in a relationship with a man who changed the core of who I was, who I thought I was. It wasn’t a good thing.”
“All of the men we are with now transformed us,” Ros noted. “But because they were the right men, it was an augmentation to what we already are, the things we liked. Whatever they altered, wasn’t altered in a bad way. Because it was love that changed us. Not fear, ego or insecurity.”
“I said that to you, didn’t I? When you met Lawrence.” At Ros’s amused look, Vera drummed her fingers on her desk. “Skye’s not the only wiseass around here.”
“Boss Wiseass, if you don’t mind.”
Vera sighed. “I’m going to think it over before I do anything with it.”
“Okay.” Ros rose with Abby. “But what’s the plan after you do?”
“Mavis said when he’s not in school, he’s usually at his family’s church. I may go there Sunday, see him in that environment, to learn more about him. Maybe invite him to Progeny with me next week, as my guest.”
“Well, far be it from me to give advice,” Ros ignored Abby’s exaggerated shock, “But I assume you’ll use a more nuanced approach than sidling up to him at church and saying, ‘Hey, come with me to a kink club and have your mind blown.’”
“In addition to other parts.”
Vera saw Bastion leaning in the doorway, his arms crossed over his wide chest. He’d obviously picked up the conversation on his approach to her office.
“How a man your size moves like a field mouse is beyond me,” Ros informed him.
“I beg your pardon, oh Queen of All. I move like a ninja.”
Vera rolled her eyes. “I’m surprised Cyn and Skye aren’t in here.” They all had a knack for knowing when a conversation of import was happening. This seemed like a casual discussion, but it wasn’t. Something significant had happened between her and Rev.
A perverse part of her wanted to do just what Ros had intimated. Shove Rev in the deep end and let him prove to her that she was wrong about that moment of deep connection. Which would give her an excuse to avoid going down what seemed like a new path, only to face the disappointment of it leading where she’d been before.
Was she really throwing down a gauntlet before Fate, just to shield herself from that kind of hurt? She knew better than that. What was it her mother used to say?
When you get to the gates of Heaven, you don’t want to say, “I took no risks.”
Life was full of ironies. That was before she told Vera she could never come home again, because Vera had chosen a path her mother abhorred.
“Skye is ass-deep in debugging that database for Birdwell and Sons,” Bastion said, “and Cyn is at their offices, testing the interface.”
“Anything I need to do?” Ros asked.
“Nope.” Bastion shook his head. “Skye said it’s just the typical bullshit involved in integrating current tech with a decade’s worth of crappy software. Or something like that. She was speaking geek. I got the important part—she and Cyn have it handled.”
“I’ll get started on Bullington’s paperwork,” Vera told Ros. “The sooner we shoot the contract over to him, the less time he has to reconsider.”
“Prioritize it, but wait until tomorrow to send,” Ros told her. “He needs to think we’re not all that eager to have his business. I told him we had a major client freeze right now to give our current roster our best efforts, but because we were bringing in a new experienced marketing rep, we had space for one more. I also heavily implied I was doing this as a favor for Matt, since they’re boxing buddies.”
“The hard-to-get plus exclusivity approach.”
“For a personality like his, it was the closer.” Ros had Abby precede her to the door, her hand brushing Abby’s hip. Ros wasn’t the touchy-feely type, but not only was Abby her closest friend, they’d had some close calls at the beginning, when her diagnosis had threatened to take her away from them. Even now, managed as well as it could be, there were rough patches. With schizophrenia’s unpredictable effect on the brain and limited effectiveness of medications on Abby’s system, there always would be.
On top of that, the two women had once been a trinity. Their closest mutual friend, Laurel, had been killed by a drunken, abusive husband—hence the Laurel Grove shelter Ros and Abby had started. The impact on Ros had been deep and lasting.
So when she touched Abby, it was reinforcement their usually invincible boss needed. It also conveyed to Abby that Ros was there in every way she needed. She’d have her back, always.
Ros was like that with all of them. As she proved when she glanced over her shoulder at Vera. “Are you all right?”
Vera met her piercing gaze. Ros’s intuition made her a successful CEO, and a formidable Mistress. The latter role was only for Lawrence now, for the transformative reasons Ros had stated. The former SEAL had Ros’s heart cupped in his strong hands like a bird’s egg. No force in the world could make him crush it.
That ache in Vera’s heart was back.
How a chance meeting with a school janitor had her emotions kicked up this way, raising issues from her past, as well as goading her longings in the present, was a mystery. Maybe she was having an off day. Maybe it was mere chance, nothing significant about any of it.
Sure. He’d caught her in his arms at just the right moment, and he’d written that message, which seemed to be just for her.
For her.
“Yes. Thanks for asking. An interesting man isn’t a bad thing.” She managed a half smile. “I just don’t want to go to the same old theme park.”
“The theme park is always the same. It’s about someone who can make you see it through new eyes.” Ros paused. “ You told me that, too. Not long before I met Lawrence.”
“Damn, I sound crazy smart.”
“It’s why I hired you. Do you have plans this weekend?”
Vera took a breath. “I think I’m going to church.”